In October 2026 the Lampard Inquiry is set to hear more evidence relating to Oxevision, a for-profit surveillance technology being used in NHS psychiatric wards.
The Lampard Inquiry is a statutory public inquiry into deaths of psychiatric patients while under the care of Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT). The inquiry has come about due to years of campaigning from bereaved families. NSUN stands with and grieves alongside those who lost someone they have loved while they were under the care of EPUT.
Included in the inquiry is an analysis of the trust’s use of Oxevision, a for-profit surveillance technology. This will be the final set of hearings on the thematic issue of “observations and technology” before the chair considers making interim recommendations. At NSUN we hope that the chair will decide to issue interim guidance recommending that Oxevision should be immediately ceased across all NHS settings.
Oxevision, (now also referred to as LIO) is a controversial, camera-based surveillance technology, with units often installed in psychiatric inpatient bedrooms. The technology is sold to the NHS by LIO – a for-profit company formerly known as Oxehealth. It is claimed that the technology helps to increase patient safety and reduce pressure on staff by making it possible to monitor patients remotely. For clarity, the technology will be referred to simply as Oxevision throughout this article.
This long-read outlines the background and timeline of events in the Lampard Inquiry, and argues that the use of Oxevision/LIO technology must be ceased immediately in all settings. We also urge readers to think more broadly, viewing Oxevision as an example of the dangers of failing to acknowledge the true causes of, and solutions to, the so-called mental health crisis.
About Stop Oxevision
Stop Oxevision is an independent lived experience-led campaign fighting against for-profit surveillance technology in UK mental healthcare. While NSUN and Stop Oxevision are separate organisations, NSUN has supported Stop Oxevision throughout their campaign by calling for NHS England to address the many issues surrounding the use of the technology and demanding NHS Trusts immediately cease their use of Oxevision.
Stop Oxevision’s work has gained significant traction since forming in 2023; in 2023 NHS England wrote to all NHS Trusts raising concerns about the legality and safety of Oxevision. The Information Commissioner’s office began an investigation into data sharing and Oxevision, and a university-backed research project into Oxevision had its ethical approval retracted by the NHS Health Research Authority on data protection grounds.
Stop Oxevision have compiled an extensive record of the settings in which Oxevision is being used. Through steady campaigning many NHS Trusts have cancelled their contracts or halted their use. NSUN will continue to support Stop Oxevision until the number of trusts using the technology is zero.
What is the Lampard Inquiry?
The Lampard Inquiry is an independent statutory Inquiry investigating the deaths of mental health patients in Essex between 2000 and 2023.
Stop Oxevision, along with the parent company Oxehealth/LIO, clinicians and senior staff members at EPUT have made extensive contributions to the Inquiry regarding the Trust’s use of Oxevision. Additional hearings on Oxevision are scheduled for October 2026.
The Lampard Inquiry is not set to publish its final report until 2027. However, it is NSUN’s hope that the Inquiry will use its powers to issue an interim recommendation that Oxevision should not be used in psychiatric inpatient settings. Recommendations made by the Inquiry would serve as a benchmark for trusts, regulators, and courts when making decisions about Oxevision and similar technologies in the future.
Oxevision & the Lampard Inquiry: a brief timeline
The Lampard Inquiry was initially set up in April 2021, originally named “Essex Mental Health Independent Inquiry”. It was re-launched (and re-named) in November 2023 under the new leadership of Baroness Kate Lampard. Public hearings began in September 2024.
In early 2025 The Lampard Inquiry requested evidence on Oxevision. Oxehealth/LIO Health (the company that makes Oxevision), Essex Partnership University Trust (EPUT), and Stop Oxevision submitted both oral and written evidence.
In May 2025, just days before in-person evidence sessions were due to take place, EPUT submitted a last minute witness statement. The Inquiry decided to delay the hearings, taking the Inquiry down a “troubling path”.
The Inquiry heard detailed evidence on Oxevision (documents compiled here).
Click here to read NSUN’s briefing on and response to these hearings.
Called for questioning were:
- Oxehealth/LIO, who acknowledged that their camera based system could constitute a “significant invasion of privacy”.
- EPUT, who acknowledged that Oxevision is possibly being misused within the trust and implied that these issues are likely national.
- Stop Oxevision, who highlighted grave ethical concerns, especially those relating to consent, privacy, data protection, and patient safety.
Barrister Brenda Campbell KC submitted a speech to the Lampard Inquiry on key issues relating to Oxevision. This speech outlined key issues raised so far and requested that the Inquiry consider “to what extent and in what form there is purpose or place for Oxevision in mental health in-patient settings”.
Separate from the Lampard Inquiry, Essex Partnership University Trust (EPUT) were ordered (by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to pay compensation to a patient (‘Miss B’) regarding the use of Oxevision. Following this complaint EPUT changed its consent policy to an “opt-in” process.
In July 2026 the Lampard Inquiry heard from staff members at EPUT, who raised broad ranging issues relating to Oxevision. This includes a recognition that:
- Oxevision had been relied on in place of completing checks on patients in person (despite EPUT’s Oxevision policy claiming to do otherwise).
- There was little staff training on Oxevision, with one staff member saying they “didn’t even know it existed” until having worked a “few shifts” on the wards.
- Staff were experiencing “alert fatigue” from Oxevision units which went off frequently, in some cases this led to alerts being muted/the volume being turned off.
- Patients had not always been appropriately informed that they were being recorded and that there had been “oversight” when it came to seeking patient consent.
- That Oxevision could, and had been, experienced as “intrusive” by patients and could be especially “distressing” for those already experiencing paranoia or psychosis. Some patients had covered up the camera with stickers or paper.
The Lampard Inquiry heard from other trusts to explore whether issues arising from the Inquiry were specific to EPUT or “reflected more widely in the implementation of Oxevision elsewhere”. Evidence was heard by six other NHS Trusts.
The hearings suggested that issues relating to Oxevision and its failings, especially in relation to consent, were widespread. Key insights from this set of hearings include:
- North East London NHS Foundation Trust had conducted a review into Oxevision concluding that there was insufficient evidence on its benefits or that informed consent had been obtained.
- South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust had used Oxevision for a short period until settings were decommissioned and it was not rolled out further.
- East London NHS Foundation Trust acknowledged that consent is not always sought from patients who are in seclusion rooms.
- Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (one of the most prolific users of Oxevision in the country) admitted that there was a need for an “urgent review of current policy” which is reportedly underway. Despite this, TEWV also confirmed that installation of Oxevision was ongoing, with plans for expansion. Click here for a detailed list of TEWV’s specific failings.
- Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust outlined just how difficult it was to end their contract with Oxehealth despite deciding to end their use of the technology early. The Trust shared that they were being charged the full contract fee plus a £60,000 exit fee.
The Inquiry instructed two expert health statisticians from the University of Oxford to produce a report summarising the public academic literature regarding Oxevision. Findings from this report were heard in an evidence session in July 2026 and suggested that “there was no evidence that could be given even moderate weight in support of the […] clinical effectiveness of Oevision in the inpatient mental health context”.
The report also highlighted issues with the evidential basis for Oxevision’s use; that it is thin on the ground and has multiple methodological issues.
No place for Oxevision
Taken together, the Lampard Inquiry hearings paint a damning picture of Oxevision. The technology not only fails to operate in the ways it claims but also creates immense harm for patients, staff, and trusts themselves. These issues long predate the Inquiry.
Still, there remains no national ban on the technology. There are people who are, at this very moment, locked in rooms where Oxevision units are in use. They are unable to escape 24/7 surveillance, irrespective of whether they have consented to it or not. Some NHS Trusts continue to expand their use of Oxevision, others wish to cease their use but find themselves trapped in lengthy and expensive contracts.
The technology is failing. It must be stopped. We are hopeful that the Lampard Inquiry will issue interim recommendations urging that it be ceased across all NHS Trusts. NSUN will continue to support this work until the very last unit is turned off.
The bigger conversation: the false promises of tech
The Lampard Inquiry not only highlights failings in relation to a specific trust and a specific technology, but serves as a warning against the risks of technological “innovation” and privatisation in a struggling mental health system. Oxevision is just one of many experimental tech start-ups whose products are being rolled out across the NHS with little regulation. There must be far more robust regulation of such companies and their products and, when they cause harm, they must be held to account.
The larger problem at hand is that poor analyses of our current mental health crisis are widespread. The biggest issue we face is not simply that people are more mentally unwell than ever, or that the mental health system has a problem with capacity: the true crisis stems from how we understand and respond to mental distress in the first place.
If we consider the mental health crisis purely as a problem of capacity in mental health care, then the logical response to increased demand for care is to increase the supply. It is this logic that makes it possible for-profit tech innovators to sell their start-up technologies to the NHS promising to fill their gaps. Oxevision is simply one of many products being marketed to the NHS as this kind of “solution” to the mental health crisis.
The NHS itself also falls foul of this limited logic. Many of these technologies are, in fact, being funded and supported by the NHS itself, through programmes such as the NHS Innovation Accelerator. This programme, which aims to “help proven innovations scale across the NHS”, funded Oxevision, as well as the controversial policing-based behavioural programme Serenity Integrated Mentoring (SIM). The NHS is not simply being exploited by tech start-ups, it is welcoming them in with open arms.
The appeal of increased efficiency relies on the assumption that the only problem with our current mental health system is that it needs to work faster and for more people at once. If we took a more nuanced view of the mental health crisis, however, we would recognise that the problem at hand is not that simple. The mental health system itself is a large part of the problem and, in order to fix it, we need to ask much bigger questions about how distress is produced, what level of wellness we can reasonably expect from people in times like these, and the reality of the support people actually need. We need a mental health system that does not criminalise or strip people of their agency, but offers them meaningful choice in what care looks like for them.
If we expanded our analysis in this way, then groups like Stop Oxevision would no longer have to spend countless hours compiling dossiers of evidence highlighting methodological, evidential, and experiential failings of specific technologies that are so clearly harmful for everyone involved. Instead, we could spend our time instead building alternative forms of care that actually address the so-called ‘mental health crisis’.
There has so far been a lack of leadership from NHS England, our legal system, and other governing bodies in ensuring that technologies are safe before they are implemented. The discontinuation of Oxevision is essential, but does not go far enough. Regulation is simply harm reduction.
We must understand the Lampard Inquiry as a warning of what is to come, and a clear example of a problem that is already worsening. With the rise of AI based ‘innovations’, and an NHS intent on shifting from ‘analogue to digital’, we are likely to see more and more tech-based ‘solutions’ marketing themselves as savours of our health service. We must build an alternative analysis, which questions the need for efficiency at all costs and puts the rights, needs and preferences of patients first instead. Perhaps then all of us, including those working for health tech companies, can spend our time creating solutions that are genuinely helpful.
NSUN will continue this fight for a better mental health system, working toward a world in which coercion and profit-making are made obsolete.